Willie Nelson has an article up at alternet about saving family farms, and it’s the perfect excuse for me to launch into one of my favorite topics- eliminating farm subsidies.

In America, we tend to think of the people who grow our crops and raise our meat as the struggling family farmer who is doggedly perusing a noble cause and spartan existence. When the topic of removing farm subsidies comes up, images of Willie Nelson on stage at Farm Aid in the 1980’s are trotted out to pull our heartstrings. But most farm subsidies in America go to large agri-business firms. From Welfare Farming at Fortune Small Bussiness:

“America’s farmers are among the most cosseted constituencies in the
country. In the past five years alone, they have soaked up a record $99
billion in subsidy payments…But it is the biggest farms that get the most,
turning subsidies into a particularly gross kind of corporate welfare. The
largest 10% of farms get about 70% of the loot.”

Huhm- sounds familiar. Once again the wealthiest 10% are taking off with most of the government cash. Just to give you an example- the subsidies on cotton are equal to the actual market output and America has 40% of the worlds cotton exports- yet struggling West African produce cotton much more efficiently until you factor in US subsidies. Another example- it cost a farmer in 2001 $5.31 to produce a bushel of wheat which was then sold on the international market for $3.50 after US subsides were applied. That’s a subsidy of about 34%.

On a positive note, the small organic farms the Willie is talking about are experiencing the fastest growth and innovation as well as being able to set above commodity market prices for their goods. So I can absolutely get behind Wilie’s call to help the small farmers with legislation to keep land, food and water healthy.

There used to be a time when any wingnut who started souting buffoonary in my direction would get the courtesy of me actually listening to why they are wignuts and then a careful, thoughtful, reasoned explanation of why what they think is ass backwards. This behavior has, on a few occassions made people question their choice of talk radio hosts, realize that public funding of private schools would actually decrease the quality of education, and once convinced a former boyfriend to vote for Clinton the first time (ok- that didn’t involve reasoning, but more an offer of a blowjob if Clinton won).

But I am done reasoning with the idiots- and that includes the self-proclaimed libertarians who are jumping on the bandwagon like Paris Hilton on tiny dogs. Sure, you want freedom and small government and think the free market works better than government. What a crock of bullshit. The free market gives us things like downwardly spiralling wages, upwardly spiralling gas prices, rampant pollution with no environmental controls, and a society that is more deeply segregated by class than we’ve seen since the boom bust cycles of the late 1800’s to the great depression.

What I have discovered is that the wingnuts are always spoiling for a fight, not a discussion. And the more reason you throw at them the more ridiculous and offensive their arguments get.

I know, there are marches in the streets and some of you are bitching about your inability to get a taco- but I thought I’d remind you all what today is all about.

This little calculator has just told me that the average CEO makes my hourly wage in just over 30 seconds.

Some other fun facts about my job: I am not allowed to work over a certain number of hours per week- even though the committee that funds my position has paid for more hours- because then I would qualify for benefits. If I go over a certain number of hours in a 6 month period- they have to fire me.

I wish my little employment misfortunes were unique, but sadly they are not. I also wish I got the benefits that working for a state government (or in my case a regional community college district) are supposed to provide in lieu of private sector salaries- but again, sadly no. I do have a job where I get to spend many hours glaring at students and playing rebel typist with a cause, but that doesn’t make up for a lack of dental care or full time salary.

Que sara, sara. Happy May 1st

On Saturday, John Kenneth Galbraith, the architect of the new deal, social security, and the guy who instituted Keynsian economics in America, died at the age of 97.

Mr. Galbraith was an unabashed liberal who thought that the military industrial complex that made war profitable was a very bad thing and would prefer to see our economy to ” respond to welfare, to a kindness, a humane need, not to sending soldiers into battle or, nowadays, sending airplanes to bomb innocent people”.

While Hayek’s ideas may currently rule the day, I can only hope that Galbraith is rediscovered as an economist who was capable of incorporating humanism into the discipline and gave us ideas for how society should be – so we know what to aspire to. Next time someone tells you that all progressives do is bitch about the problem, you can point to Galbraith as someone who gave solutions. And hopefully his son, James K. Galbraith, will continue the tradition.

So for the major theory geeks- there has been a bit of an academic battle between the theories of Francis Fukuyama (End of History) and Samuel Huntington (Clash of Civilizations). My poly sci proff is a Huntington freak- so Fukuyama was barely skimmed over in my international relations class and I didn’t pay much attention. I preferred to bitch about Huntingdon’s eurocentric bullshit (for the record- I am a die hard fan of Emmanuel Wallerstien’s structuralist theories, which puts me on the far left).

Then I read this and watched this. Fukuyama is steadfastly based in free market liberalism (trade=democracy=more trade=more democracy=more trade) but he deftly explains the neocons ‘realism” of creating an enemy in order to gain more power. I remember the attempts to make China the most feared nation (while Clinton was giving China most favored nation trade status). I have often wondered if the neocons were really that paranoid or if they were trying to instill fear where none was needed. Turns out they are all about exploiting the fear.

So now that the evil empire is Muslim instead of Soviet- you can bet your ass there will be an invasion of Iran. They could not possibly let diplomacy do it’s job because diplomacy defeats the image of the scary Muslims with nuclear weapons and without an image of an enemy to fight against and protect people from, the neocons haven’t got a thing to keep us in line with.

Go leave a thank you note for Steven Colbert and his giant balls o’steel at thankyoustevencolbert.org. You know he’s gonna need all the support he can muster when the Great Decider sicks all the acronyms (FBI, CIA, IRS, FCC, NSA, etc.) on him.

And just a little something to make your panties wet- I give you raised eyebrow Steven (uhmmmm full of tasty truthieness)

This article states better than any of my inept ramblings why it is that this whole immigration brouhaha is a bunch of protectionist crap.

From the standpoint of economic theory, liberalizing the flow of labor is no different from liberalizing trade. Both redistribute a nation’s wealth, with a net positive effect. The difference is that liberalizing trade disproportionately benefits richer countries, while easing immigration
restrictions would help the world’s poor.

Dani Rodrik, an economist at Harvard, estimates that a worker in the first world earns 10 times more than someone with similar qualifications in the third. Even a light loosening of immigration restrictions, Rodrik argues, would provide a far bigger boost to the world’s poor than knocking down all the famously crippling agricultural subsidies.

I am big on eliminating farm subsidies to begin with. Africa can produce higher quality cotton at a fraction of the rate of the US before our ag subsidies kick in, and NAFTA destroyed Mexican corn farmers by flooding the market with cheap, subsidized American corn while Mexican officials ignored the quota system put in place to soften the blows to Mexican farmers. Even while competing with massive US subsidies, Brazil kicks everyone’s ass when it comes to soy production. But Rodrik is right, if one immigrant African worker makes 10 times more money in the US than at home there is no way that eliminating ag subs could come anywhere near to improving the poverty that remittances from the US could. If an immigrant sends home just 10% of their pay- they have contributed an entire year’s wages to their family.

After all, for many in those countries, their biggest asset is their labor,
and the current system forces them to sell it at much lower than market value.
If free trade is a tide that lifts all boats, then so is free labor. But this
time, the smallest boats get the biggest boost. If we’re going to ask countries
to let in our goods, we should be willing to let in their workers.

I know very few of us who would be willing to give up the niceties that we get for cheap from imported sources. I’m sitting here right now in a skirt made in China and a t-shirt made in Guatemala. I know the horrible conditions these clothes were made under- yet I still wear them. So is it that you don’t mind the crushing poverty wages as long as you don’t have to see it. Or maybe you don’t like the idea of competing with someone who is more desperate than you for work. If that’s the case- then legalize the immigrant workers and let them organize. I can promise you that if they have legal rights to better pay then they will use them. The only reason they work for less than minimum wage now is that they have no recourse. But think about it- would you work for less than minimum wage if you had legal recourse- hell no!

Shakespeare Bill has forwarded me a link to the entire text of Colbert’s speech and a link to the video that may work faster.

But just to give y’all a taste of what you’re missing- Colbert to the White House Press Corp:

But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The president
makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those
decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make,
announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your
family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking
around in your head. You know the one about the intrepid Washington reporter
with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know fiction.

And I can’t forget to mention the intrepid Helen Thomas! The Christian Science Monitor is a fantastic paper and it’s nice to see some journalists still have a set of steel ovaries and a rightous sense of humor. Go Helen!

(this photo was shmaelessly stolen from Shakespeare’s Sister- deal)

I wish I was still sleeping with the cable guy for free cable- just to I could watch Colbert work his magic. But I’ve seen the cable guy that works my neighborhood now and even if it was doggy style with Colbert on the TV screen in front of me- I couldn’t do it. Even if it was gay porn of Colbert and Jon Stewart getting it on in front of me I couldn’t do it- the cable guy is just that gross (think handle bar mustache, giant beer belly barely contained by his cable guy shirt and a mullet and you’ve got my cable guy now)

So the point of all this Colbert worship is that he roasted The Great Decider at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner the other night. It is fantastically funny (though the Great Decider is less than amused) and much of the audience looks uncomfortable.

I give you Colbert’s entire speech (cut into three bits at You Tube) it takes forever to download but it is soooooooooo worth it.

Viva la truthiness. Viva Colbert!

Colbert Roasts Bush 1

Colbert Roasts Bush 2

Colbert Roasts Bush 3

Happy Happy Birthday! Does this mean you are officially a dirty old man?